Mawson, C.O.S., ed. (1870–1938). Roget’s International Thesaurus. 1922.
Class V. Words Releasing to the Voluntary PowersDivision (I) Individual Volition
Section V. Results of Voluntary Action
735. Adversity.
NOUN:ADVERSITY, evil [See Evil]; failure [See Failure]; bad – ill -, evil -, adverse -, hard- -fortune, – hap, – luck, – lot; frowns of fortune; evil -dispensation, – star, – genius; ups and downs of life; the sport of fortune; broken fortunes; hard -case, – lines, – life; sea -, peck- of troubles; hell upon earth; slough of despond.pressure of the times, iron age, evil day, time out of joint; hard -, bad -, sad- times; rainy day, cloud, dark cloud, gathering clouds, ill wind; affliction (painfulness) [See Painfulness]; bitter -pill, – draft (or draught), – cup; care.
TROUBLE, hardship, curse, blight, blast, load, pressure, humiliation.
MISFORTUNE, misventure [archaic], mishap, mischance, misadventure, disaster, calamity, catastrophe; accident, casualty, cross, blow, trial, sorrow, visitation, infliction, reverse, check, contretemps [F.], pinch, rub; backset, comedown, setback.
DOWNFALL, fall; losing game; falling &c. v.; ruination, ruinousness, undoing; extremity; ruin (destruction) [See Destruction].
VERB:BE ILL OFF &c. adj.; go hard with; fall on evil, – days; go on ill; not prosper [See Prosperity].
COME TO GRIEF, go downhill, go to rack and ruin (destruction) [See Destruction], go to the dogs [colloq.]; fall, – from one’s high estate; decay, sink, decline, go down in the world; have seen better days; bring down one’s gray hairs with sorrow to the grave; be all over with, be all up with [colloq.]; bring a wasp’s (or hornet’s) nest about one’s ears.
ADJECTIVE:UNFORTUNATE, unblest, unhappy, unlucky, unprosperous, improsperous [obs.]; hoodooed [colloq., U. S.], Jonahed [slang], jinxed [slang], luckless, hapless; out of luck; in trouble, in a bad way, in an evil plight; under a cloud; clouded; ill off, badly off; in adverse circumstances; poor [See Poverty]; behindhand, down in the world, decayed, undone; on the road to ruin, on its last legs, on the wane; in one’s utmost need.
ILL-FATED, ill-starred, ill-omened; planet-struck, devoted, doomed; inauspicious, unauspicious [rare], ominous, sinister, unpropitious; unfavorable; born -under an evil star, – with a wooden ladle in one’s mouth.
ADVERSE, untoward; disastrous, calamitous, ruinous, dire, deplorable.
ADVERB:if the worst come to the worst, as ill luck would have it, from bad to worse, out of the frying pan into the fire.
QUOTATIONS:
- One’s star is on the wane.
- One’s luck turns, one’s luck fails.
- The game is up, one’s doom is sealed, the ground crumbles under one’s feet, sic transit gloria mundi, tant va la cruche à l’eau qu’ à la fin elle se casse.
- Adversity’s sweet milk, philosophy.—Romeo and Juliet
- Amici probantur rebus adversis.
- Bien vengas mal si vienes solo.
- [Greek].—Periander
- Gaudet tentamine virtus.
- Curœ leves loquuntur ingentes stupent.
- Res est sacra miser.—Ovid
- Sempre il mal non vien per nuocere.
- Væ victis.—Livy
- Sweet are the uses of adversity.—As You Like It
- The man who complains of the crumpled rose leaf very often has his flesh full of thorns.—Chesterton
- In the shadow of a great affliction.—Whittier